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The NLE that keeps moving forward?
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[Rafael Amador] “it with a subject that sounds to old propaganda (“The NLE that keeps moving forward?”)”
Uh, I just called the thread this because the thread ahead of it that I referenced in my OP was titled “The NLE that just wouldn’t die.”
It was a silly little wink. Nothing more.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Michael Gissing] “I know this is tongue in cheek but it suggests to me you have not experienced tracks in their full glory.”
It *was* tongue in cheek but, for what it’s worth, I was a post production mixer/sound editor for about 10 or so years before I became a picture editor, and my first multi-track recordings were done on a “sound on sound” 1/4″ deck. So I have experienced tracks in all their glory. 😉 And honestly, if FCP X was supposed to be a DAW I would miss tracks. But isn’t, and I don’t. Just my opinion of course… 🙂
[Michael Gissing] “Years ago I suggested to DAW software people to embrace the idea of collapsing down a group of sounds into a grouped object that could then be manipulated by dynamics, EQ & levels as an object.”
Yep. Roles. Assign Roles/Subroles to faders/groups and off you go. I imagine that, or something like it, is coming. 😉
————————————————————-
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
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[Walter Soyka] “In a group, the related clips are peers. In a hierarchy, the related clips are ordered. Different degrees of structure.”
Yes, but from a purely practical standpoint, what difference does it make to playback?
[Walter Soyka] “Maybe here’s a case where a single point (not a range!) is important. Groups do not codify the connection point that defines the relationship.”
True, but again as long as the clips are locked together temporally, what difference does it make? Syncing to a hit point between source and record is a specific edit type (sync/replace edit in FCP7 IIRC) that isn’t used most of the time.
[Walter Soyka] “Here, you’ve conceded that the magnetic timeline has some benefits. What are they, and where do they come from, if not from hierarchy?”
Well, some people think they’re benefits 😉 Isn’t the main one being able to move groups of clips around and reorder things without worrying about clip collisions? I don’t think you need hierarchy to do that, you just need smarter groups and smarter grouping/moving tools.
[Walter Soyka] “the places where I see hierarchy in my work are lower-thirds that are legitimately tiered under speaker clips, graphical elements that are related to specific pieces of content, and sfx that belong to specific moments or graphical hits. “
Great example. In terms of the composite, yes, the lower thirds/graphics could be considered children of the parent content. But in terms of playback, hierarchy is irrelevant. All that matters is that they appear when they’re supposed to in time.
[Walter Soyka] “Is remapping the story structure in the face of a changing edit really any different than remapping nodes in the face of a changing composite?”
Yes, very! A nodal compositor maps the render pipeline for the shot. Remapping nodes has nothing to do with time. Very different tools for very different purposes.
[Walter Soyka] “Let me flip the question around a bit: does hierarchy misrepresent the edit in all cases?”
It’s not that it misrepresents the edit, it’s that in the context of a timeline, it’s an inappropriate contrivance.
The parent/child hierarchical metaphor that drives the magnetic timeline UI is a computer science metaphor, not an editorial metaphor. Maybe it’s an elegant representation of the underlying timeline data model, but the data model is irrelevant to the task of editing. I’ve yet to meet an experienced editor who explicitly thinks in terms of building hierarchies when doing the actual work of cutting. Do you know any?
Designing a UI around a data model may make sense to computer engineers, but it’s rarely good for users.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
[David Lawrence] “[Charlie Austin] “The who what? got a link to this method? Seriously, I’m interested. :-)”
Here you go:
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/29301
I think Jim made a template project available if you want to try it out.”
Thanks. 🙂 I actually had seen that at some point. When I first started messing with X, I tried to create a similar structure using empty compound clips as dividers between say. MX/FX/DIA/VO etc. It worked, but at some point I realized I really didn’t need them, I just let go of tracks intellectually. More or less. Given the proper roles, it’s trivially easy to see specific clips as the playhead moves over them. I know it’s apparently just me, but I could care less if my clips are perfectly aligned with one another. I mean, it’s not like the media needs to actually pass over a head to play back right? I think being able to group roles by type would/will be nice, but I’ve grown accustomed to not thinking about where my audio goes in the timeline. It’s freeing. lol.
As to video… same deal. Whatever is on top of the pile of clips is what I want see on playback. I can “connect” clips (audio and/or video) to a specific point on the primary storyline (even if it’s just filled with gap) if I want, so I can easily drag chunks of material around without the need to select all the individual clips. Being able to assign a z-index value to video clips in addition to their roles would be nice, but again, the debate over the philosophy of the magnetic timeline totally mystifies me. In practice, once you get used to how clips move around, it’s no different than editing in FCP 7 or any other NLE I’ve used. Select portion of source clip, edit into timeline, add related audio, repeat ’til done.
————————————————————-
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
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[Charlie Austin] ” the debate over the philosophy of the magnetic timeline totally mystifies me. In practice, once you get used to how clips move around, it’s no different than editing in FCP 7 or any other NLE I’ve used. Select portion of source clip, edit into timeline, add related audio, repeat ’til done.”
Correct, this is exactly what most experienced FCPX users will say, but no matter how many times you say that the timeline in X isn’t a problem and in almost all cases it’s an advantage, you’re not going to convince Aindreas.
Steve Connor
‘It’s just my opinion, with an occasional fact thrown in for good measure” -
[Aindreas Gallagher] “for starters – FCPX is not a prius, its the google auto-drive car, if we’re going that way.”
No it’s not. This is not your analogy. It’s mine. So i get to make it. You can try to swipe it or re-tiniker it, but since you’re not John Calvin nor Jerry Bruckheimer – and therefore lacking the followers or the box office, you don’t get to make your own rules.
Moving on…
[Aindreas Gallagher] “OK – say for kicks editing is post modern, in that the modernist era of formal contextual shark icon experimentation – it could be argued – is over.”
Well, this is “kicks” for you – but just understand that nobody actually SAID that – so you’re starting off by arguing about something that nobody’s actually espousing – so you’re in a self-induced spiral -pretty much from paragraph ONE.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “we are all now aware say, after a decade and a half on the ground, that a true track timeline can faithfully represent any given expression of editing in any context.”
Yes, Aindreas – and a box of crayons can be used to draw ANYTHING on the planet. Both these statements are fabulously true and totally useless vis a vis common sense.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “it appears to be that bullet proof.”
Again, so are crayons for expressing color, shapes and forms. THEY are “bullet proof” as a communications medium in precisely the same way. I can DRAW, shade, WRITE WORDS with them – they are PERFECT – so I suppose the world needs NOTHING but crayons. (Glad we cleared that up!)
Next you ramble through a few paragraphs about sharks, macromedia, bash Apple with a fragment of the the Canon of HaterScripture as a “non-innovator” and lurch to something sorta resembling an actual argument
[Aindreas Gallagher] “- why exactly are apple casting this critical, and (necessarily failed initially) live relationship in a hard to unpick connected clip concrete mess?
Its not, at all, difficult to interrogate V/A relationships in editing. it only requires looking at the timeline. Indeed, openly judging and critiquing those relationships, forms a half decent definition of editing sort of?
Editing is meant to be live sensitive jelly – between the clips, the intent, the music, the VO – so then why please did the engineers in apple decide they should set canonical parent child relationships at timeline entry? that then have to be unpicked later when those relationships run out of date?”
In order…
I’d argue that most experienced X editors find absolutely nothing “hard to unpack” about any aspect of the program. Period. It’s possible YOU can’t remember what’s inside a connected clip relationship, but I can in the same way I know my Dremel is in the gray box on the second shelf in my garage (and that there’s an auxiliary kit of bits in the Red and Beige set in the second drawer.) I know this because I have a brain. I don’t have to open them all up and lay out every drill and grinding wheel to work effectively. If you do – great – fire up Premier and build the “exposed” timeline of your dreams. Nobody’s arguing that YOU shouldn’t.
In the next paragraph you once again try to define what editing should be like for ME. And once again, I’m simply not going to let you. You may require an array of editing visual clues where everything must be discrete and stacked up like ABC blocks. But I’m content working like the entire modern electronics industry where sub-assemblies have proved more efficient and useful than keeping every freeking resister in piles on a workbench and soldering them on a breadboard one by one. Hint: virtually NOBODY builds electronics this way any more. Sub-assembly as a standard is smart. Wow, maybe there might be something useful about that approach in video assembly as well! – wait, NOBODY can explore that because Aindreas doesn’t like to think that way. Now I get it.
Finally and I’ll be brief because I don’t want to linger over long in the land of “live sensitive jelly”, discussing “canonical parent child relationships” – so i’ll just point out that once again, you make your constant and unwavering mistake. You start out with an absolute statement of fact: in this case, “Editing is meant to be…” before blathering on about how YOU see editing. Well, that’s wonderful on Planet Aindreas. But I don’t live there. And it’s arguable that your planet is kinda in retrograde these days. Perhaps you work on some exalted plane where you must juxtapose each nuanced EVERYTHING between your clips, your INTENT, your Music, and your VO. Ooohhh – shivers! But maybe Cindy or Tom just needs to get a freekin clip out to the web before the sales meeting. So not to put too fine a point on it – STOP TELLING US HOW WE MUST EDIT.
(please, everyone, read that as a “muted” or better yet, “sotto voce” bellow so as not to overtly offend, but i’m emphasizing the point with intent!)
Cuz at base, I’m not coming here telliing you you’re an idiot for how you go about your work. But I’m quite tired of you trying to tell me that because my needs might be different than yours – that you have some special insight into the ouvere of editing that I must bow down to.
I get what you do. I just don’t want to do that because I’m not the same person doing the same work as you. (thank the stars.) .
[Aindreas Gallagher] “in educational terms, by robbing all that sensory per clip malleability, by deadening whole chunks of the timeline into predisposed lego super objects the minute they meet each other, objects that you can mindlessly heft around like a pick up truck, by doing this – “
A – nobody’s trying to steal your malleability. (ProTip: if you wrap your monitor in tin foil, I’m told it enhances sensory malleability by a significant factor!)
B – LEGOS are extremely and nearly unfathomably cool. The unassailable proof of this is their having radiated substantial joy out from Denmark around the entire globe whilst encouraging the building of neural pathways in generations of children. To the extent X has any remote kinship to Legos – that reflects wonderfully on X in my book.
C. Pickup trucks are also very cool. (Particularly when you need to haul stuff.)[Aindreas Gallagher] “I would argue very strongly that apple have effectively lobotomised whole sections of the personal editing exploratory process by making these default decisions.”
Well, yes, we KNOW you would argue that. But you’d be wrong. Deeply, and profoundly wrong. But I’m willing to listen. Go ahead, trot out even ONE example of a “whole section of the personal editing exploratory process” that X has even slightly damaged let alone “lobotomized.” But the catch is that it has to be one that the majority of readers here AGREE has been thusly damaged by the X approach. I await your response and the judgement of the collective.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “by casting simplified concrete b-roll in software, that acts like a multi-story pick-up mechanism – this deadens the questions that might arise later in the students mind because well, sure its all glued together now so why bother – not that they would – but the software lends itself to moving on.
I would personally argue that apple are anti-intellectual here, that their decisions – the pre-jointed lego they have constructed for editing – is fundamentally anti-intellectual.
not so much maybe for the seasoned practitioner who can side step the gross simplification of process – but what kind of educational basis for editing is clip super-glue by default?
isn’t this rather intellectually dodgy for that kid in college?
“And here’s the real rub.
You don’t actually understand X very well – do you Aindreas? I suspect you’ve dinked with it just enough to appear to have a reasoned opinion, but don’t have anywhere near the depth of understanding to realize just how deeply foolish your arguments here are.
You try to purport it’s the anti-christ of editing software – but those of us without your bizarre and illogical bias just keep being HAPPY with it. And I know that drives you absolutely freekin’ NUTS.
But the truth is – it DOES make many of us happy. Not fully. Not perfectly. But HAPPY in all caps.
So in your construct, we’re either foolish buffoons – or we’ve actually experienced something that has so far escaped you. And the truth is – we HAVE! It’s what X is like when you ACTUALLY know how to operate it. Yes it’s imperfect. But it’s also really freekin COOL!
It’s actually FUN to edit with. It’s FUN to explore. It’s FUN to experience the quality and ease and responsiveness.
You appear to be in a sad place where you’ll NEVER experience that.
You unfolded an “angry bag” and after painstakingly constructing a Voodoo doll with FCP-X written across it in your own fresh blood – you’ve slipped the doll into that bag – placed it prominently in your life view – and now you feel you have to worship it as the central shrine of your public life.
And that’s too bad.
You seem to me like the kid who’s afraid to jump off the cliff into the lake even tho the kids who do appear to be having fun – so you just stand on the edge, or stop on the hike up to swim a little – but when the other kids go gleefully up to the ledge – you just sit below and tell everyone why they’re so STUPID to do that.
And you, just like their parents, are somewhat right. And also really, really wrong.
Because it’s in the healthy nature of human teens to jump. Not all, but just enough to keep the human edge alive.
Look, everyone knows that the kids who aren’t jumping secretly want the thrill. But they just can’t bring themself to go where they need to be to get it. So they rationalize. But that’s life. Some jump. Some don’t.
It’ just sad that you’ve taken on the role of scold telling us that NOBODY should jump. EVER. That the safe life on the shore is the ONLY life worth living. Good luck with that.
Look, I know that for the worldwide thousands of EDITORS LIKE YOU – X isn’t right. But you’re still going to have to deal with the fact that for the Hundereds of Thousands (and possibly Millions eventually) of EDITORS LIKE me – it is very cool.
And since it provides the same quality output capabilities and 80% of the editing capabilities in a package that is, smaller, lighter and less expensive to own and operate – AND since it’s more rapidly developing – I’m happy to bet on it’s future.
That’s enough for now.
Thanks for letting me exercise my keyboard.
(If this came across as harsh, it’s because I know you can handle it. Just as others are free to bash me because they know I’m happy to bash right back. That’s what makes this place so fun.)
Till next time.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
-
[Aindreas Gallagher] “for starters – FCPX is not a prius, its the google auto-drive car, if we’re going that way.”
This is not your analogy. It’s mine. So i get to make it. You can try to swipe it or re-tiniker it, but since you’re not John Calvin nor Jerry Bruckheimer – and therefore lacking the followers or the box office, you don’t get to make your own rules.
Moving on…
[Aindreas Gallagher] “OK – say for kicks editing is post modern, in that the modernist era of formal contextual shark icon experimentation – it could be argued – is over.”
Well, this is “kicks” for you – but just understand that nobody actually SAID that – so you’re starting off by arguing about something that nobody’s actually espousing – so you’re in a self-induced spiral -pretty much from paragraph ONE.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “we are all now aware say, after a decade and a half on the ground, that a true track timeline can faithfully represent any given expression of editing in any context.”
Yes, Aindreas – and a box of crayons can be used to draw ANYTHING on the planet. Both these statements are fabulously true and totally useless vis a vis common sense.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “it appears to be that bullet proof.”
Again, so are crayons for expressing color, shapes and forms. THEY are “bullet proof” as a communications medium in precisely the same way. I can DRAW, shade, WRITE WORDS with them – they are PERFECT – so I suppose the world needs NOTHING but crayons. (Glad we cleared that up!)
Next you ramble through a few paragraphs about sharks, macromedia, bash Apple with a fragment of the the Canon of HaterScripture as a “non-innovator” and lurch to something sorta resembling an actual argument
[Aindreas Gallagher] “- why exactly are apple casting this critical, and (necessarily failed initially) live relationship in a hard to unpick connected clip concrete mess?
Its not, at all, difficult to interrogate V/A relationships in editing. it only requires looking at the timeline. Indeed, openly judging and critiquing those relationships, forms a half decent definition of editing sort of?
Editing is meant to be live sensitive jelly – between the clips, the intent, the music, the VO – so then why please did the engineers in apple decide they should set canonical parent child relationships at timeline entry? that then have to be unpicked later when those relationships run out of date?”
In order…
I’d argue that most experienced X editors find absolutely nothing “hard to unpack” about any aspect of the program. Period. It’s possible YOU can’t remember what’s inside a connected clip relationship, but I can in the same way I know my Dremel is in the gray box on the second shelf in my garage (and that there’s an auxiliary kit of bits in the Red and Beige set in the second drawer.) I know this because I have a brain. I don’t have to open them all up and lay out every drill and grinding wheel to work effectively. If you do – great – fire up Premier and build the “exposed” timeline of your dreams. Nobody’s arguing that YOU shouldn’t.
In the next paragraph you once again try to define what editing should be like for ME. And once again, I’m simply not going to let you. You may require an array of editing visual clues where everything must be discrete and stacked up like ABC blocks. But I’m content working like the entire modern electronics industry where sub-assemblies have proved more efficient and useful than keeping every freeking resister in piles on a workbench and soldering them on a breadboard one by one. Hint: virtually NOBODY builds electronics this way any more. Sub-assembly as a standard is smart. Wow, maybe there might be something useful about that approach in video assembly as well! – wait, NOBODY can explore that because Aindreas doesn’t like to think that way. Now I get it.
Finally and I’ll be brief because I don’t want to linger over long in the land of “live sensitive jelly”, discussing “canonical parent child relationships” – so i’ll just point out that once again, you make your constant and unwavering mistake. You start out with an absolute statement of fact: in this case, “Editing is meant to be…” before blathering on about how YOU see editing. Well, that’s wonderful on Planet Aindreas. But I don’t live there. And it’s arguable that your planet is kinda in retrograde these days. Perhaps you work on some exalted plane where you must juxtapose each nuanced EVERYTHING between your clips, your INTENT, your Music, and your VO. Ooohhh – shivers! But maybe Cindy or Tom just needs to get a freekin clip out to the web before the sales meeting. So not to put too fine a point on it – STOP THE FARK TELLING US HOW WE MUST EDIT.
(please, everyone, read that as a “muted” or better yet, “sotto voce” bellow so as not to overtly offend, but i’m emphasizing the point with intent!)
Cuz at base, I’m not coming here telliing you you’re an idiot for how you go about your work. But I’m quite tired of you trying to tell me that because my needs might be different than yours – that you have some special insight into the ouvere of editing that I must bow down to.
I get what you do. I just don’t want to do that because I’m not the same person doing the same work as you. (thank the stars.) .
[Aindreas Gallagher] “in educational terms, by robbing all that sensory per clip malleability, by deadening whole chunks of the timeline into predisposed lego super objects the minute they meet each other, objects that you can mindlessly heft around like a pick up truck, by doing this – “
A – nobody’s trying to steal your malleability. (ProTip: if you wrap your monitor in tin foil, I’m told it enhances sensory malleability by a significant factor!)
B – LEGOS are extremely and nearly unfathomably cool. The unassailable proof of this is their having radiated substantial joy out from Denmark around the entire globe whilst encouraging the building of neural pathways in generations of children. To the extent X has any remote kinship to Legos – that reflects wonderfully on X in my book.
C. Pickup trucks are also very cool. (Particularly when you need to haul stuff.)[Aindreas Gallagher] “I would argue very strongly that apple have effectively lobotomised whole sections of the personal editing exploratory process by making these default decisions.”
Well, yes, we KNOW you would argue that. But you’d be wrong. Deeply, and profoundly wrong. But I’m willing to listen. Go ahead, trot out even ONE example of a “whole section of the personal editing exploratory process” that X has even slightly damaged let alone “lobotomized.” But the catch is that it has to be one that the majority of readers here AGREE has been thusly damaged by the X approach. I await your response and the judgement of the collective.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “by casting simplified concrete b-roll in software, that acts like a multi-story pick-up mechanism – this deadens the questions that might arise later in the students mind because well, sure its all glued together now so why bother – not that they would – but the software lends itself to moving on.
I would personally argue that apple are anti-intellectual here, that their decisions – the pre-jointed lego they have constructed for editing – is fundamentally anti-intellectual.
not so much maybe for the seasoned practitioner who can side step the gross simplification of process – but what kind of educational basis for editing is clip super-glue by default?
isn’t this rather intellectually dodgy for that kid in college?
“And here’s the real rub.
You don’t actually understand X very well – do you Aindreas? I suspect you’ve dinked with it just enough to appear to have a reasoned opinion, but don’t have anywhere near the depth of understanding to realize just how deeply foolish your arguments here are.
You try to purport it’s the anti-christ of editing software – but those of us without your bizarre and illogical bias just keep being HAPPY with it. And I know that drives you absolutely freekin’ NUTS.
But the truth is – it DOES make many of us happy. Not fully. Not perfectly. But HAPPY in all caps.
So in your construct, we’re either foolish buffoons – or we’ve actually experienced something that has so far escaped you. And the truth is – we HAVE! It’s what X is like when you ACTUALLY know how to operate it. Yes it’s imperfect. But it’s also really freekin COOL!
It’s actually FUN to edit with. It’s FUN to explore. It’s FUN to experience the quality and ease and responsiveness.
You appear to be in a sad place where you’ll NEVER experience that.
You unfolded an “angry bag” and after painstakingly constructing a Voodoo doll with FCP-X written across it in your own fresh blood – you’ve slipped the doll into that bag – placed it prominently in your life view – and now you feel you have to worship it as the central shrine of your public life.
And that’s too bad.
You seem to me like the kid who’s afraid to jump off the cliff into the lake even tho the kids who do appear to be having fun – so you just stand on the edge, or stop on the hike up to swim a little – but when the other kids go gleefully up to the ledge – you just sit below and tell everyone why they’re so STUPID to do that.
And you, just like their parents, are somewhat right. And also really, really wrong.
Because it’s in the healthy nature of human teens to jump. Not all, but just enough to keep the human edge alive.
Look, everyone knows that the kids who aren’t jumping secretly want the thrill. But they just can’t bring themself to go where they need to be to get it. So they rationalize. But that’s life. Some jump. Some don’t.
It’ just sad that you’ve taken on the role of scold telling us that NOBODY should jump. EVER. That the safe life on the shore is the ONLY life worth living. Good luck with that.
Look, I know that for the worldwide thousands of EDITORS LIKE YOU – X isn’t right. But you’re still going to have to deal with the fact that for the Hundereds of Thousands (and possibly Millions eventually) of EDITORS LIKE me – it is very cool.
And since it provides the same quality output capabilities and 80% of the editing capabilities in a package that is, smaller, lighter and less expensive to own and operate – AND since it’s more rapidly developing – I’m happy to bet on it’s future.
That’s enough for now.
Thanks for letting me exercise my keyboard.
(If this came across as harsh, it’s because I know you can handle it. Just as others are free to bash me because they know I’m happy to bash right back. That’s what makes this place so fun.)
Till next time.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
-
I think we can safely say that although this forum has gone through something of a quiet spell lately, it’s now firing on all cylinders again!
Steve Connor
‘It’s just my opinion, with an occasional fact thrown in for good measure” -
[Charlie Austin] “And honestly, if FCP X was supposed to be a DAW I would miss tracks.”
Interesting. Why would you be missing tracks if it were a DAW?
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
[Aindreas Gallagher] “So then why exactly do we have automatically mapped parent child relationships off the primary? what exactly is that for? given edits change constantly? Its not a situation where we are re-mapping the alpha input on a complex composite?
Do you see what I am getting at?
Isn’t this ridiculously over-engineered?”
HI There,
I do see what you are getting at. I am not sure that look that deeply under the hood in regards to Mr. Timeline.
Not sure either, that I use the “Timeline” the way Apple Engineers intended. I use it the way that it makes sense to me.
What I love about it is that with FCPx I can make the timeline work in so many different ways that only my own creativity puts a sock to it 😉
Cant say that with other NLEs. As a matter of fact and I dont say this just to oppose, after using FCPx 18 Months and occasionally editing in PPRO or AMC (Just not to get too rusty should I cut in a foreign facility) those NLEs are more confining work-wise than FCPx.I think the biggest problem folks used to the “older” NLEs are having with FCPx’s timeline is that they (I was too) treat it as if it was a “normal” timeline. It looks like a normal timeline but it is extremely far from being it 😉
I remember cursing and that loudly over the magnetic timeline, connections moving when trimming etc etc…. It drove me nuts the first two days.. Then I said to myself, OK… FORGET the “old” timeline and try making the “new” work – get your head around it” –
And thats what I did. And today I embrace it 100% and I have re-based my cutting style around it. And while I used to be considered a very fast cutter – the speed at which I can cut in FCPx is so superior that only the CPU speed puts a limit to it. 3 days ago I was cutting in PPRO (love the CUDA real-time rendering) after having not used it for about 3 months. I still know all my short keys, tricks etc… I started cutting and for the first time I seriously realized HOW great the FCPx & its timeline is… Doing generic tasks like trim, roll, ripple etc which I used to think were fast before the days of FCPx all of a sudden seemed slow and non intuitive. In the music video I did it called for a lot of retiming. I have gotten so accustomed to the quality of Optical Flow in FCPX and in PPRO all (unless I go to AE) is the dull frame blend which looks horrible in my eyes…Sure adobe gives you great ways of retiming but you HAVE to roundtrip to AE and although this is made VERY easy in CS6 it is still much faster NOT having to roundtrip. Optical Flow would be ONE very very big reason for me to work in FCPX even if I would hate its timeline concepts which I dont 😉
So, without even knowing it, I had gotten so accustomed to the timeline concept of FCPx that I was seriously missing it cutting in an old-time NLE.
Still – to me the single most important thing is getting the job done. I am a highly visual guy and what makes FCPx the superior choice to me, is the Event Library and its concept. I am a big fan of getting to know my material and “sort on the run” — I am also REALLY big on saving time.
Imagine a project with about a 1000 media files. In a normal NLE that would take about 1000 double clicks alone to view them. In FPCx ZERO. I can see them all at a glance a skim thru them without clicking. Creating Smart-FIlters and Keywords are making way for way of sorting previously unthinkable. I remember the days where sorting/naming/logging took days for a medium sized project and it was something I dreaded every time. With FCPx this process is more or less eliminated. I go thru the source media of 1000 files in about 2 hours and after that I have tagged it in so many ways that I can sort my whole event library 10 different ways if I want to. The metadata system (roles in particular) is just so darn brilliant… Doing this in any other NLE is making me vomit 😉
PC VS Mac – DAW VS DAW or NLE VS NLE – I use and make money with all 3… I hate wars like “My Software is a better choice than yours” or Protools is better than Logic (It is ;-))) ! They are all just ideas of how to accomplish a given task… I would NOT want to ever cut in Sony Vegas ever again but I would rather cut in Sony Vegas than not cut at all 😉
To be able to really judge (meant literally) a software-concept one must get really acquainted with it ! Most folks driving frustration towards FCPx are FCP users wanting FCPx to be an update to FCP
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